


Refusal

by tacky_tramp



Category: Harry Potter - Rowling
Genre: Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-04-01
Updated: 2009-04-01
Packaged: 2017-10-02 06:54:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tacky_tramp/pseuds/tacky_tramp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Once, she’d kept Tom’s diary close to her.  Always close enough to touch.  Now, the thought of touching it made her mouth go dry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Refusal

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to TheIronJef and Salmon_Pink for the fabulous betas on my FIRST COMPLETED HP FANFIC!!!!!111eleventy! Written for 100quills, prompt "Refusal."

Title: Refusal  
Once, she'd kept it close to her. Always close enough to touch. During the day, she'd tucked it into a robe-pocket, so all she had to do in a moment of worry or loneliness was reach in and brush her fingertips over it. At night, it rested under her pillow; she'd usually fallen asleep with one palm spread over its cool, comforting cover, and a smile on her lips.

A smile, and a name. _Dear Tom_, she'd murmured whenever she ran a thumb along the diary’s spine. _A friend who's always with me_.

Now, the thought of touching it made her mouth go dry. It had been over two weeks since she'd last slipped it open. Desperate and frantic, she'd had to find out if anyone had learned her terrible secrets. She shouldn't trust it — she'd known that — but there was nothing for it. And then all her worst fears had been confirmed: an entire night and morning lost, and by the time she'd come back to herself ...

"Ginny?"

She started, but it was just Ron, looking up from a game of Exploding Snap as she entered the common room. She tried to smile in response, but then Fred and George turned their faces toward her, and Harry looked, too, his eyes flashing clever and true despite the dark circles beneath them. They all wore grief on their faces and around their shoulders. Ginny could see it though they tried to laugh like usual, and it left her breathless and heavy. Grief, worry, and fear.

_My fault. I did it. And I'm sorry._

She managed an awkward sort of wave and mumbled, "I'm fine." It was almost true. As long as she could stay away from it, everything _would_ be fine.

That, however, was becoming more difficult with every passing day.

Once she'd realized what had happened, she'd stuffed the thing into the bottom of her trunk. A poor hiding place, she knew, but she hadn't a better one. Besides, she thought grimly, it wasn't others she had to fear.

It was herself.

For she found that she could hardly get through a lesson without reaching mindlessly into her pocket, only to find emptiness as sharp as a blade. With nothing under her pillow to cling to, sleep eluded her. Her ears seemed to echo with the scratch of her quill, which used to fly so freely over the diary’s creamy pages. Every face she met seemed blank and unfriendly. She was consumed with fear and guilt, yes — but also longing. Sometimes, before bed, she'd catch herself staring at her trunk, her fingers inexplicably tingling. She was beginning to suspect that it was only a matter of time before her loneliness won out. Before _he_ won out.

Last night, she'd awoken in the middle of the night with her hands already on it. Consciousness crashed over her as sudden as a cresting wave, and there she was: standing in the moonlight, the contents of her trunk scattered around her bare feet, her muscles rigid under the thin fabric of her nightdress. And the diary clutched in her fingers. They looked so small and white against its soft black cover. Gasping fearfully and trembling from top to toe, she cast the thing away.

Even in the light and warmth of the common room, with Gryffindors all around her, the feeling of the diary lingered on Ginny's fingers like a stain, like the sickening residue of a sticky, stolen sweet.

It was just upstairs. She could go up right now. Just to check on it. Might even be wise.

Then her eyes fell on the empty chair beside Harry. Hermione should be sitting there — book in her lap and vague smile on her lips, like she was reading some deep and joyful secret. Every now and then she'd look up, to tell the twins to keep it down, to correct Ron on a potion-making step, or just to watch Harry intently for a moment with an unreadable face. The book always drew her back, but Ginny knew Hermione was never really unaware of her surroundings. Always thinking, that girl, and always thinking of those around her.

Ginny set her jaw. Hermione lay glassy-eyed in the infirmary, a victim of Ginny's weakness. She had to stay strong — for her. Without meeting the concerned eyes that followed her across the room, she took firm but shaky strides around her brothers and past Harry, and settled in Hermione's usual chair. She stared down at her trembling, empty hands. _Dear Hermione_, she thought, clutching her own arms for warmth. _I'll refuse him for you._


End file.
